#686: the food.

i've had my share of BAD wedding food. but i've had more good than bad. really. so i guess the stigma of 'ew-inducing wedding food'...is no longer? i don't know.

anyways, when we were planning our wedding, the hubs and i were like "no. matter. what. we have to have good food, ok?"

good food for le bodies.

and our venue delivered. gosh. the food. it was just so good. especially after a few very portion-controlled weeks.

and of course we knew it would be. dude, i'm a VIP member. not joking. (it's free to join.)



photos by max.

p.s. shout out to my beautiful friends d & j who got married over the weekend. one of my fave moments of the night was when the officiant told the groom "she chose YOU...out of 3 BILLION MEN..." it was perfect.

p.p.s. had a little chatsky with dave of temple of groom.

p.p.p.s. i really do love weddings, i think.

#680: the paper crafties.

i love crafting.

but i'm not the type who can REALLY craft. i mean. i love the people who can REALLY craft. like, the serious crafters out there who can REALLY create REALLY amazing stuff.

but i'm not one of those.

i'm more of a... wannabe crafter. you know. the kind of crafter that gets an a for effort.

that kind of thing.

but i guess i didn't care. because we still ended up with sort of a paper craft extravaganza...thing.

our card box and our programs:


uh huh. that's right. paper baggies for the pompoms:


our centerpieces:


part of our placecard table:


here are our placecards, appropriately blurrily photographed by a friend:

(remember way back when when they were just frosh? sigh.)

most of them ended up finding cozy homes as such (photographed by a friend):


the paper experience worked for us because...well, i love paper. and i love to craft. craft-extraordinaire-WANNABE i may be, but those jitters came second to just doing something i really enjoyed doing...so that the end result would be a personal, connected, and meaningful one.

which it was.

and that's the a's and z's of it, yo. simple, huh.

all photos by max wanger unless i said it wasn't.

#676: the flowers. and kismet.

we used real flowers for only a few things: my bouquet, the bms' bouquets, 3 orchid bouts for our moms and my grandmother, and two flower bundles to present to the parents.

total cost: $50.

so very nice.

my plan all along had been to stop by the whole foods behind my house the night before the wedding and just buy the flowers they had available there.

but a couple of weeks before the wedding, i found out that the flower mart was literally two blocks from where i worked. i always knew it was close, but having never been, i had no idea it was THAT close. so i walked myself over during lunch one day to check it out and promptly scrapped the whole foods idea. it'd be so silly to go retail when the wholesale route was staring at me in the face.

the day before the wedding, the hubs and i went to the mart to select and purchase our wedding flowers. and we had 1.5 hours to do it.

i didn't have any colors in mind or the names of the types of flowers i wanted to use for our bouquets. and no pictures of inspiration with me. instead, i was hoping really really hard to be inspired by whatever was there that day. (flexibility is cool like that.)

we weren't walking around for more than a few minutes when i came to a place that had an assortment of peonies. light pink peonies, bright pink peonies, and lavender-pink peonies. they were all blooming differently and i thought they were amazing looking. so i began to look through the bunches to pick the best ones. of course.

when all of a sudden, the owner was like "hey!"

turns out, the shop owner was my dad's friend. someone i hadn't seen in over ten years. i was like WHAT?! and he wouldn't take more than $50 from us for the 10 bunches or so that we bought. and then he threw in 3 orchid bouts for the moms and grandma for free. i was like WHAT?! but there was no saying no. and so we graciously said thank you and left the flower mart feeling uberly lucky and happy.

sometimes, when it's meant to be, it's just meant to be i guess.



the bouquets look pretty homemade, huh. my bms and i wrapped them up the night before the wedding with flower tape and some ribbon i had laying around at home. i will never know how florists make the bottom of bouquets so perfectly round and lavishly thick. mine was far from round. and way far from thick.



see what i mean? the bottom was all jaggedy and triangular.

but i don't know. i still loved the way our bouquets looked. the light pink color matched my bms' dresses quite well (my sister, the MOH, in the jeweled green/blue above. one of my bridesmaids in coral below.) and, well, i wore white, so anything would've worked. but the slightly darker lavender pink color was nice.




oh, and then here's one of the two bundles i made with the bright pink peonies for our parents. wrapped with a cut up ralph's paper shopping bag.



all pinks. all peonies. all DIY.

who knew.

all photos by max wanger. some given an extra crop by me.

#675: my hair. and the piece.

i never had a hair trial and so i never knew what my hair was actually going to look like on the day of our wedding. it's probably because i knew i was going to be doing my own hair and makeup and could never be bothered to do a hair trial...for myself. dunno why. maybe, something to do with like laziness or something?

sans a hair trial, i carried a color copy of my inspiration to the bathroom on the morning of and...just wung it.

first, i blow-dried my hair and set in the same curlers i've been using since 10th grade.

then, while the curlers were doing their thing, i did my own makeup. complete with lovely fake eyelashes. they were looooooooooooooong and lovely and made me feel a little crazy and slightly glamorous.

and THEN, when the curlers cooled, i took 'em out and threw a million bobby pins at my sister who then pinned and pinned. whilst she pinned, i stared. at the gigantic fake eyelashes that were glued yay close to my eyes.

and then we all had a joyous hairspraying party to ensure my hairs wouldn't become loose.

and of course. the headpiece. well, you all know the story behind that.

i don't have any professional pictures of myself getting ready but here are some pics of the result. none from the front -- because i'm shy.

there's really no lesson here. just pretty pictures. but if anything, i hope this inspires those of you who are getting your hair and makeup done only because you think you HAVE to as opposed to NEEDING to. to give it a second thought.

for me, DIY was 110% the right decision.






all photos by max wanger.

#674: our cake topper.

we didn't really have a cake topper. in fact, we didn't really have a cake. remember?

anyways, i thought that was that. done and done. but then something happened.

a couple of weeks before the wedding, we received one of our most favoritist wedding gifts, from a dear dear dear (three times, dear!) friend of mine who lives in ireland. she couldn't make it to our wedding and instead sent over something that squeezed the juice from my eyeballs.

i knew there had to be a place for it somewhere in our wedding. and it took me all of 2 seconds to figure it out.

on the day of, i had one of my bridesmaids put my friend's gift next to our cake. as a kind of cake topper. but the kind of cake topper that didn't go on top of the cake.

like this.


photo of our cake and 'cake topper' by max wanger.

p.s. it's wanger. not wagner. just sayin.

p.p.s. our venue ended up providing the cake table, a cake knife, a cake server, and cake stand...with no instruction from me. cool, huh.

#673: bits and pieces.

it's been almost five months and the nitty gritty details are starting to escape me. oops. i should have written down all of my feelings, reviews, and other stuffs as soon as it was over...or even a month after it all happened...but. i'm not that diligent. and it got busy.

but it's all good. because our photog caught all the details that needed to be captured.

plus, you know, i will forever remember what i need to remember.


us. by max.

so i've been thinking about how to go about recapping. and i've decided i'm just going to wing it.

peace.

p.s. totally don't fit into my wedding dress anymore. nope.

Procrastination & Wedding Letdown

I never thought I'd be one of those Bride's that takes FOREVER to complete her wedding album. Or to get copies of pro-pics out to her family…but it turns out I am one of those Brides ;) I'm only about a quarter of the way through my blurb album. And I've received a few emails informing me that blurb has updated it's software to be bigger and better. So, I'm wondering if this means I need to re-download the software and re-do the small part of the album I've completed? Anyone know?

My goal is to get the parents albums out by Christmas…which means I need to get my keister in gear. Unlike shutterfly (the company that I use for my everyday memory photobooks), blurb is super speedy with its printing process and shipping - which is great. I just need to submit my order! Hopefully I'll work on it a bit tonight 'cause tomorrow is a busy day filled with beer bottling (for our upcoming Hallowe'en party!) and TV and speaker installation…not to mention the cleaning that needs to be done!

I'm also a little surprised that I've turned into one of those wedding bloggers that take FOREVER to finisher their recaps of how the day went. I promise these will get done one day soon, but if you'd like links to my facebook pictures in the meantime, please leave a comment.

Getting The Dress On

As I mentioned in a previous post, the morning of the wedding woke up to a beautiful sunrise…I then turned the airconditioner off (Pat had turned it up to the max the night before - brrr…, checked the weather channel (no rain!) and promply fell back asleep. I awoke again a few hours later at 8:00am anxious for the day to begin.

My sister, Karen, was going to pick me up at around 9:45am to drive us to our 10:00am hair appointment…she was right on time :)

I really enjoyed the time alone in my hotel room - but at the same time, it did feel kind of lonely. I could have had my sister, or now sister in laws stay with me…but I think I really would have preferred Patrick to be there. I don't regret my decision to spend the night before my wedding away from my fiance…but I don't think I would have regretted staying with him either. I have always fantasized about seeing my hubs for the first time on our wedding day walking down the aisle…but I don't think it really would have mattered if he saw me in my pjs or jeans…the big reveal really comes when everyone is dressed in their finest anyway.

Just a little food for thought…I didn't really give it the thought I should've - espeically considering Patrick pushed to stay the night together…oh well!

Onto the getting ready part. Our photographer was set to arrive at 1:30-ish to take some pictures. The plan was for the 'maids to be dressed and ready to go. I would then get dressed once the photog arrived. When she got there I was in my customized tank (don't hate me for it…lol…I love personalized stuff!):



Before Melissa, our photographer, arrived I'd ordered up some OJ to add to the champagne I'd brought for mimoas…can you see my frugility here? So, we sat around and enjoyed these for awhile. I'd also bought a couple of donuts and muffins (I think only one muffin though…it was all Timmies had left - lol)…we munched on those too. It was funny that although I hadn't really eaten much the week before the wedding (I was PARANOID…like severly…that my dress wouldn't zip up - terrible feelings to have) and was often really hungry…I had like NO appeitie on the day of the wedding. This is not like me. I love food soooo much (hence the 5-7 pounds I've since gained back) - I guess my nerves were bothering me.

After the sitting around for a while (well, I was kind of pacing - I didn't know what to do with myself!). I opened the gift Patrick gave me…I kind of already knew what it was (shhh!)…but it made for some photo-ops:



I'm looking at my MOH, Meg, here…I think she was teasing me because she knew I knew what the gift was…lol - so contrived!







Before I knew it, it was time to put on THE dress :)

I'm a pretty modest girl…which made putting on a wedding gown in front of 5 other people an interesting experience! I made them all promise not to look ;) Of course it was a-ok for the photog to take a few pics…but none of me in my knickers!











Yay - it fits!!!